The Biggest News Ever for Me, Lola

Yesterday was the most amazing, surprising day ever since the day I moved in here. I'm still in a bit of a tizzy over it, although you can't always tell that with me. I guess I'll just tell you about it from the beginning.  The day started out normally enough. I went for my bath. Alpha Mom picked me up and brought me home. Blog Mom was out, but came home shortly after. I sniffed right away that she'd been with another dog. Well, of course that happens once in a while, but I studied the smells on her pants very carefully. (This is foreshadowing.) Quite soon after she came home all three of us ladies got into the car to go out again. I couldn't imagine where we were going. It was pouring rain. I hate that. It was no weather for a noseventure, but here we were, heading out someplace.

Our first stop was a Petco store. I love shopping so that was fun. For some reason there was no flashy beast to capture me adorably standing up and putting my paws on the counter while we were checking out. I wanted to pawticipate in the whole shopping experience. After that  it was time to head home, right? Not so much.

Our next stop was a building that I'd never been to before. Or rather the parking lot of the building. There was a lot of barking coming out it and some very interesting smells in the air. Blog Mom went in alone and then came back out and then we all just sat in the car for a little while. This is just not making a lot of sense to me. Finally a lady came out the door, with a doggy on a leash. Normally I'm delighted to meet new furiends, but I don't care for hanging out in parking lots in the pouring rain and this is what it seemed was expected of us. The doggy sniffed me like mad and was all, "Hey, you're a Shar Pei! I'm a Shar Pe! How cool is that? My name's Brooklyn, what's yours?  Let's be best friends right now! We'll sniff each other and then we'll sniff some more and it'll be great!Please, please please." And I was all, "Some other time young dude. It's freaking raining cats and, er..cats out here. "

Next up in this whacked out scenario was to walk over to a fenced in spot, with an awning, thank Dog. There was also lots and lots of mud in there. Once in there, it was leashes off . I was interested in two things: Staying under the awning and climbing up on a bench that was there to get away from the mud. Young Brooklyn, despite clearly being a Pei, seemed oblivious to the rain and mud and just want to advance the friendship that we had not established. He sniffed me. I pretty much ignored him. We both had to jump up on the Moms from time to time to check in and cover them with mud. Served them right, seems to me. About this time, Blog Mom stepped backwards and into a sizable hole that was there. With her bad foot, of course. She yelped like she'd been bitten and, oh it was bad for a little while there. It's still bad today but not AS bad.

Ok, finally time to go home for really truly. We got our soaked, muddy selves back into the car, but hey, wait just a freakin' minute. Three of us had arrived and by my count there were four of us in the car now. What was up with that?  Could it be?

Hi I'm Brookyn! I'm very glad to meet....EVERYONE!

Yes, it could. It seems I've got myself a little brother, like it or not.  He's about a year and a half old and we got him from the town animal shelter. He was given up, according to his owners, because they had to move to a place where they couldn't have dogs. I'm sure they didn't mean to screw up like that, but he hadn't been neutered - the shelter did that. He needed entropion surgery, which you have to figure could happen if you get a Shar Pei puppy, and the shelter had to do that, too. He should have been treated for it as a puppy, but it didn't seem he was. In fact his eyes haven't finished healing from that yet. We're taking him to the vet next week to follow up on them.

You can kind of see here that they look funny, but you can't see how red they are all around the rims and I think there might be a couple of stitches still in.

So how did this happen? I gather it was Blog Mom's idea, but she was supported in this by the others. They give reasons - wanting another doggy to help me stay young and active and wanting to give back to the Shar Pei community, seeing as I turned out to be so nearly perfect that they didn't feel they'd paid enough dues or something. The people at the shelter were pretty happy that Brooklyn was going to a home with another Shar Pei. I do have to say that.  But I know the real reason. Shar Pei are like potato chips. It's really hard to stop at just one.  Of course, no one asked me, Lola. Oh, I suppose that meeting in the rain was supposed to be where they asked, but I don't think they explained the question very well. I'm still considering what I think of it all. I don't dislike him. He's kind of sweet, it's sort of interesting having him here and he's submissive to me, Lola.  Oh, and he loves, loves, loves me. Those are some of the positives.

Checking him out, trying to decide what I think.

 He always wants to play. If I play with him a little, he just wants to keep it up way longer than I feel like it. He loves, loves, love me and he follows me everywhere. EVERYWHERE. That can get old fast. I have a lot of work to do if I'm going to get him trained to suit my lifestyle. Those are a couple of the negatives.

C'mon! Play with me! I wanna play. I love you! Please, please play with me!

He barks when he's trying to get me to play. You see what I have to put up with? Life was very peaceful. However, it seems the family has made a commitment to Brooklyn already, so sending him packing is not going to be an option.

When I say he's always up my butt, I'm just telling it like it is.

 As you can see from this lovely shot, he's a different type of Shar Pei from me, Lola. He's more like the traditional Pei. He keeps all his wrinkles on this head. None on his body at all. And he's teeny bit taller than I am but he's a lot lighter. He has long thin legs. He looks skinny compared to me, but you can feel my ribs and not his. He'll probably fill out a little more by the time he's two, but not all that much. He does have a nice meat mouth, though. It's his best feature.

The kitties, of course, are none too pleased. He's not too bad about them. He doesn't mistake them for prey or anything, but I think he mistakes them for puppies and tries - you guessed it - to play with them. They don't want to play with him and they never, ever will. I tried to explain that but he doesn't get it yet.


Other general impressions are that he's as much a goody two paws as I am when it comes to house manners. He's also just as picky an eater. I like that. On the other paw, he does slobber rather a lot. I only rarely slobber. He seems to foam up at the drop of a leash. He's not doing it as much today as yesterday, though. So maybe it's the excitement and stress of moving into a new pack.

A decision was made by the human contingent that I would continue to sleep upstairs with Alpha Mom as always and Brooklyn would sleep downstairs. Blog Mom fully expected to have a fairly sleepless night with a young doggy in a brand new situation, whereas everyone was sure that, being given a break from Brooklyn, I would happily fall into bed and sleep deeply until morning. Well, you know the old saying, "Man plans, Dog laughs.". Turns out that Brooklyn totally gets lights out and spent a quiet night. I, on the other hand, could not seem to sleep. Which meant that Alpha Mom didn't get much sleep either.

I guess you can stay as long as you understand who's top dog. And I see that you do.

 So that  my furiends, is my big news. Life here is never going to be quite the same again. I'm leaning toward being OK with it, but I expect it'll be a bit of a rocky road while we adjust to our new situation. I do think that Brooklyn has some potential and if there must be little brother, he's probably as good a choice as any. I'm just not sure whether I wanted one or not. I suppose I'll be posting about our progress in establishing our new family configuration quite a bit for while. And I hope to get some advice from experienced older siblings like Ranger, Mango, Asa And  you can bet I will be turning to Twinkie's Advice Column quite a bit in the coming weeks, I think.